Police Arrest Two in Arizona Killings

Phoenix police on Friday announced the arrests of two men in a yearlong shooting rampage that killed six people, injured more than a dozen and terrorized the sprawling, sunbaked metropolitan area.

Dale S. Hausner, 33, and Samuel John Dieteman, 30, were taken into custody Thursday night as they left their apartment in Mesa, Ariz.

Officers from a 200-member multi-agency task force investigating the shootings seized several guns and towed a Toyota sedan from the gated apartment complex.

The suspects were being interviewed by police Friday.

“These are the two monsters we’ve been hunting,” Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon said at a City Hall news conference announcing the arrests.

Police said the men were responsible for attacks they had attributed to a “Serial Shooter.”

Still at large is the “Baseline Killer,” to whom authorities attribute eight slayings and 11 rapes in the Phoenix area since September.

The gunman or gunmen the police dubbed the Serial Shooter cruised at night in a light-colored sedan, shooting pedestrians and bicyclists, apparently at random.

Most recently, a 22-year-old woman was reported fatally shot Sunday night while walking to her boyfriend’s house less than three miles from where Dieteman and Hausner were arrested.

Each is being booked for investigation of two counts of first-degree murder and of 13 counts of attempted first-degree murder, police said, adding that other charges were possible.

Hausner is a boxing photographer and announcer in Phoenix whose pictures have appeared on sports websites.

According to associates of Hausner, he said about a year ago that he was suffering from cancer and was scaling back his professional work. He also worked as a janitor at the Phoenix airport.

Sue Fox, a police officer in Portland, Ore., who runs the online Women Boxing Archive Network, said Friday that she had not spoken with Hausner for more than a year until she received a call from him about three weeks ago.

“He said, ‘Hey, this isn’t boxing-related -- I’ve got a question for you,’ ” Fox said. “He sounded real excited.”

Hausner asked whether she had heard about the Phoenix shootings, she said.

“Is that all over your news? It’s got to be everywhere,” he said, according to Fox.

Boxing trainer Manny Stewart said Hausner had photographed and announced many Phoenix-area fights that Stewart had been involved in. He recalled Hausner as a well-mannered aficionado who would bring his mother with him to the gym.

“He didn’t seem to be an aggressive guy at all,” Stewart said.

Little information about Dieteman was available Friday.

The Serial Shooter rampage apparently began in May 2005, when a 56-year-old man was killed while sleeping at a bus stop.

Twenty-two other people were shot -- five fatally -- in a sprawling area that includes eastern and central Phoenix.

Four horses, several dogs and a burro also were shot.

Police said the victims seemed to have been selected at random.

“These individuals just picked folks out, and that was it,” Assistant Police Chief Kevin Robinson said Friday.

Authorities said Dieteman and Hausner also were believed to be responsible for two arsons at local Wal-Marts on June 8 that caused more than $5 million in damage.

Police said the two men were identified Monday night as suspects in the series of shootings.

The Phoenix task force has received thousands of tips on the Serial Shooter and the Baseline Killer.

Gordon tried to reassure residents Friday that they could soon return to life as usual.

“As I promised you and my colleagues promised you, we’re not yet finished,” the mayor said. “The hunters [have] become the hunted.... Phoenix is a city on the offensive.”

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Times researcher Lynn Marshall in Seattle contributed to this report.